It's probably actually the Mets year.

          My uncle passed away last night, the culmination of a long battle with brain cancer. The last weeks were hard...he deteriorated; first slowly, then rapidly losing all the elements that made him who he was. And he was a wonderful man, a wonderful father and husband, and a wonderful friend.

          But I sit to write not because I lost a beloved family member, but because I lost a great friend. A drinkin' buddy, a fishin' buddy (not that those two things were separate of one another), a man I always looked forward to seeing. I'm blessed to have spent so much time with him throughout my life; Friday nights at his parents and later my parents, and Saturday nights around the table at Mom and Dad's. He was a friend, and a good friend, of my Dad for almost 40 years and a huge part of why our family was always so close when I was a kid. My dad's best friend was my mom's brother. Unique, to say the least.

          The stories are many, and they're all sweet, or funny, or irreverent. They're aided by a shot of rye, a sip of bourbon, a cold beer on a hot day, a martini in honor of his father. He was a man who boiled down to three things: he loved his Mets, he loved his family, and he adored his girls. I can think of times, kicking back in the July sunshine with his boat swaying gently in the ocean, where he would get lost in stories of his daughters, his wife. We would be smiling and laughing anyway, but how he would beam when he spoke of them! The unspoken truth, however, was that he had four girls. He looked up to, admired, and loved his big sister just as much. What he came down to, and will continue to come down to, I guess, is not three things, but one. Love. Few and far between are the people who just want to love and care for people the way he did.

          He was a great conversationalist. He could, and would, sit and talk with anybody. I learned from him that the key to a great conversation is two fold: 1) there are two sides, and 2) it's all about asking questions. He would draw stories and jokes and personalities out of everyone he spoke to. You felt funny, and important, and interesting when you spoke with him.

I could tell a million stories of my own (in which my father plays Best Supporting Actor) about the man who taught me about baseball, the man who threw too hard for me to catch, the man whose rib I broke that one time (not my fault), the man who was generous and kind (and would never seek to be called that to his face), the man I saw Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park with, the man who was always quick with a kind word (generally disguised as a very transparent insult). The man I was lucky enough to call my uncle and my friend.

I just can't shake this image that climbed into my head last night. I can't help but feel that. somewhere, the great and powerful Bette Ann is hugging him and saying

"Ah, hell, Billy. It's too soon."

And she's exactly right.

Oh. Hey there.

Hey.

I’ve missed you, and it’s my fault.

It has been a crazy time in my life. Since last we spoke (May...MAY?!) my life has changed SO MUCH.

I left you in Tennessee last time, so I’ve added a summer in New Jersey, a move to Richmond, VA,  a brand new job and a marriage. All of those were wonderful, and amazing, and a ton of fun. I live near old friends and I’m making new. I married an amazing human being with such love for the world she lives in, such compassion and care for others that it blows me away everyday. We had a beautiful ceremony that feels like a blur because I was REALLY FOCUSED on not screwing up. We had a blast at the reception which included 10 different styles of craft beers from the places we have lived: Arizona, Louisiana, New Jersey and Virginia. I decorated (applied Colleen's ideas) the reception hall with Sean and Eric while Colleen picked up friends from the airport, and not only did I not screw it up, IT LOOKED AWESOME. I've been blessed enough to join a wonderful, welcoming family. I have lived some of the greatest times of my life since we chatted last.

I’ve struggled, too. I’ve left a job I loved. I’ve lived with the concern and struggle of not having a job (a very stressful handful of months that included interview after interview). I’ve moved twice in 4 months, one 2500 miles and one over 300. I’ve adjusted to a new home, a new routine, a school laden with technology. I’ve changed my way of doing things in the classroom to meet cutting edge educational practices and technologies while retaining what I think made me effective. I’ve seen my uncle’s health fail.

A word on that. My uncle, a man who gets as much credit (blame) as anyone for me being who I am was diagnosed with brain cancer in the spring of 2012. I firmly believe that his very existence makes this world a better place. Cancer really sucks.

I’ve had days where I’ve come home on fire with excitement about my students, and their progress, and their successes, and days when I’ve been unable to do much more than sit on the floor.

My biggest mistake, in all of this, was not taking you all along for the ride. I have lived the highest of highs in my life so far, and struggled through some deep valleys. Consider this my promise to take you along with me next time, and not just tell you about it afterwards.

"Alligator bit smoothies"

Day three: Ridiculous

A ten hour drive from Amarillo to Houston. LONG. I took the doors off the cat cages to allow them room to move and stretch…Red slept under her blanket, as usual, and Palo napped on my lap for a while before he went off to sleep in his box. They’re handling the crazy of the move very well.

We discovered an In N Out in Dallas, so of course that’s where we stopped for lunch. For dinner, we went to Taco Cabana (I wish I was kidding) and stayed at a Baymont Inn hotel in Houston. Well the first room was flooded…which might be nicer than the second room. The second room…just generally gross. But it’s one night, and you make due.

Observations from the road:

1.       Never again, Baymont. Never again.

2.       Never again, Taco Cabana. Never again.

3.       Cows. So many cows.

4.       Tons, also, of horses.

5.       Some deer? I guess.

6.       The changing landscape from the Texas Panhandle to Southeast Texas.

7.       Texas. It’s far too large.

Song of the day:

                Summer Girls, LFO.

Tomorrow: 351 miles and 5 hours and 46 minutes to New Orleans, Colleen, and two relaxing nights.

New Orleans:

My car is cleaner than it’s been in years, from the open skies of New Orleans, and I thoroughly enjoyed the rain. Sick and tired of Texas, it was a relief to get to New Orleans and to see Colleen. It always is. Too short this time…but only 9 weeks to go. It was a blast meeting Colleen’s friend Heather…we all had a great time together.

A quick summation:

What a great time. Jambalaya. Crawfish. Oysters, both raw and charbroiled. Walking the French Quarter with Colleen, Sean and Heather. Alligator sausage with andouille sauce. Enjoying an evening on the fly by the Big Muddy, and getting caught in a downpour. Hiking the Barataria Preserve in an epic downpour while listening to the Pig Frogs (HogFrogs) and watching the snakes and alligators. Walking the French Quarter with Sean and Heather while Colleen gave a presentation, and ducking into the nearest establishment when the skies opened up. Live music in the French Quarter on Thursday night and live music at the Jolly Inn in Homa on Friday night.  Ridiculous conversations. You think Sean and I are bad? Throw in Colleen and Heather and see what happens. It was fantastic.

Palo being really fancy and making everyone love him. Red doing some of her highest class hiding.

Road kill alligators. Weird. 

It’s a city with fantastic charm, and one I haven’t gotten a chance to explore enough.

Tonight, I sit in a hotel room in Kingsport, Tennessee after driving close to 700 miles through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. The cats are really handling this chaos well, but I can tell it’s beginning to stress them out.  Tomorrow we finish out the drive, 580 someodd miles, 9ish hours and Beachwood at the end of the day.

Song of the day:

Mashup of “Fancy”, “Happy”, “Turn Down for What” and “Talk Dirty to Me”. And the entire mix Colleen made of 90’s tunes that started our day. She didn’t give us the play list so every song was “….OH I REMEMBERTHIS ONE!”

One more day. Then Mom can try to steal my cats.

RedScare!

Day two closes on us finding a sweet room in Amarillo. I had booked rooms the other day, and this one, while out of the way (not as far east as an identical hotel) is fantastic. Currently, Sean is giving Palo a ton of crap for being a cat and cleaning himself on the table while Sean tries to write. And at least Red has climbed out from under the box spring, where we couldn’t find her. It seemed like she had disappeared. RedScare, Amiright?

We drove through the Petrified Forest this morning, a winding bumpy road that leads from Rt. 180 to I-40, and set us up beautifully for the ride to Amarillo from Holbrook. Except Palo gets carsick. He tried to warn us too, becoming more active and noisy in the box before he threw up. Poor guy. I gave him some water and threw out the old clothes he was sleeping on, and he rebounded quite nicely.

Highlight of the day: Albuquerque’s anti-DWI logo looks something like a bat of sorts. Which lead to a long conversation about how bats could be used to prevent or arrest people driving under the influence. Suffice to say it was ridiculous and I laughed, very hard. Also, we couldn’t find any tacos in New Mexico. Really, NM? You dropped the ball.

Observations from the road:

1.       Rocks that used to be trees!

2.       A man walking down the side of I-40 dragging a cross over his shoulder.

3.       The cross had a wheel on it

4.       A man with a bike sitting on the ground in the shade of an overpass on the side of I-40

5.       Big Texan Steakhouse (again)

Song of the day: Semi-Charmed Life, Third Eye Blind

Tomorrow:  600ish miles to Houston, TX. 

I ain't got a dime, but what I got is mine

So the first night of Sean and Mike’s crazy roadtrip has fallen. We made it, over the last several days, from Las Vegas to Bullhead to Havasu to Bullhead. Today, we headed from my (former) apartment to the Grand Canyon to Holbrook, AZ. This is Sean’s first time out to this side of the country, and definitely not my last. It’s weird to be gone…like when I left New Jersey the first time. Tons behind me, but tons ahead, as well. 

After we finally finished packing, we drove to the Grand Canyon. The cats had settled down (Red having finished her sad solo aria) and the drive was smooth. When we arrived at the Canyon, we clearly couldn’t leave the cats in the car….so out they came. Sean carried RedCat in the small airport carrier I have, and Palo…well…I carried him. In my arms. He was leashed, but I carried him. People stared. At least one pair of tourists took his picture. A pair of British tourists asked me if he was “pedigree”.  He let a 4 year old girl pet him. Now Palo is settled in next to me on the hotel bed. They’re resilient little critters.

Observations from the road:

1.       Prairie dogs!

2.       Tumbleweeds

3.       Mule deer

4.       Pronghorn

5.       2/3 of a coyote

6.       A squirrel standing on his hind legs in the middle of the road asking to be hit by a car

7.       Guy with a parakeet on his shoulder

8.       A parakeet on a guy’s shoulder that was eating McDonald’s French fries.

Song of the day:

Rick. Freaking. Astley.

Thanks for coming with me again. I’m glad to have you all along.

Tomorrow brings Amarillo, TX, the Big Texan Steakhouse, and another hotel stay. I like hotels because they have beds, which my apartment did not this weekend.

"with 10 miles behind me, and ten thousand more to go"

To whom it may concern:

                I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your trust in me. You took a chance on an East Coast kid, and gave him an opportunity to sink or swim on his own merits. I like to think that I swam (more like I did in the 100 Fly or the 200 IM and less like I did that ONE time I attempted the 500 freshman year). Unfortunately, life is such that continuing here at Mohave Valley Junior High is not a feasible option for me, and I will be moving on from my 7^th Grade Language Arts position after this school year. I hope that you will accept this as my resignation, effective at the end of the 2013-2014 school year.

                To swim, in this sense, has been more like a swim meet or a relay than it has been an individual event. Surely, what I do in the classroom is individual in the sense that I am the one in charge of the atmosphere and the content at any given moment. But, in reality, I am never the sole voice in the classroom. What I am, and what I do, is greatly influenced by the wonderful people I’ve had the opportunity to work with.  Our 7^th grade team has been so supportive, so helpful, so open with one another. That discourse, and suggestions from experienced teachers, and group thinking about how to deal with challenges we face on a daily basis have helped me to grow both personally and professionally. Any and all of my success can be directly attributed to two things: hard work and the lunchtime combination of problem solving and blowing off steam that we did every day. From the very bottom of my heart, I thank you for that Miller, Price and Stobbs.

                I can remember my interview with Ms. Stahl, when she asked me what I wanted in an administrator, what I thought was important for people in charge. I asked for support. And I have received it in spades. I know that I came here with a lot to learn, and I know that I am leaving here with at least as many, if not more, questions about how to be better at my profession. I can stand tall knowing that those questions are different ones than I arrived with, and that I have come a long way in my two years in Mohave Valley.

                Leaving here is both exciting and sad for me. If there is one thing that I have known since my first day here it is that my students deserve better than they often get. My kids are great kids. They make me proud to be their teacher more days than not with their humor, intelligence and resiliency. Many of them face extreme challenges on a daily basis and rise above them. I see it daily in the classroom or in athletics. I coached three seasons, not for me, but for the kids. I had never coached volleyball. I had never coached basketball. But if I didn’t this year, who would have? My kids deserve the chance to be involved in after school activities, to learn from one another through athletics and clubs. I’ll admit that I love sports. And that I think there is a lot of value in being a part of a team because of the life lessons you can learn from winning and losing (too campy? Too bad).  I am proud of the strides each of my teams made as they learned to work and play with one another and be supportive of one another.

                So that’s why it’ll be difficult. I have great coworkers who are great at their jobs and better people. Great support from good people in administration. Fantastic students who I really feel like I did my best for, both in the classroom and on the court/field. Students and athletes who I learned a ton from. This place has impacted my life and changed it. Even in leaving, a part of me will stay here. 

But moving on is also something I am looking forward to. I am going to marry a wonderful human being before I turn 29. My next tax return will reflect a move (or two) a marriage and a new job. Part of marrying Colleen means we get to live in the same state (at least). I am long since tired of the separation in our geography. One of the things I love most in this world is Colleen being happy, and she has totally kicked ass and taken names during her time in Louisiana. I could not be happier about her enjoyment and happiness at gaining experience and working with and for amazing people. I am excited about our future.

So my life is changing. Zxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (thanks, Palo, that was helpful).  I am not big on change. This is one that both terrifies me and excites me. It’s hard to walk away from a career and a community that I respect and appreciate. It’s hard to walk away from people I care a great deal about. It’s hard to walk away from what is a burgeoning softball program at MVJH.  But it is far harder to stay. The distance from my family. The distance from Colleen. We hope to have a family. It is far, far better to raise them in proximity to our families than here.

I don’t want to be another adult who has walked out on these students. I want them to know that I gave them 100% of what I had while I was here. I believe in them.  It has been my pleasure to teach and coach them, to maybe learn them something about what an East Coast attitude is. To set an example with a New Jersey work ethic.  So thank you, students and parents. Thank you, administration and coworkers. Thank you, mom and dad and Colleen for your endless support and encouragement. I am very, very lucky for all of the love and support that has gotten me through my two years in the desert.

While the circumstances of my life lead me forward and onward from the desert, know that I deeply appreciate all that it has done for me. So, cheers. Raise a glass. Lift a longneck. I appreciate you far more than I can express.

Sincerely,

Mike Hennessey

115 degrees. Ummmm...Nope.

While I will post a specific “moving on” related entry later this weekend, Colleen’s great description of things she sees/loves about south Louisiana got me thinking about things I’ll miss in Arizona. My time here is growing short quickly (Dad says I’m so short I can’t see over my shoelaces), and while I am excited to head back east and see what that brings, (the same state as Colleen, maybe? Please?) there are things here I’ll miss. So, in no particular order:

1.       Roadrunners. They’re ridiculous, and Price seems to be a roadrunner whisperer of sorts (see: that time on the golf course when he called one and it came).

2.       Baby quail. THEY’RE SO LITTLE

3.       7% humidity being a lot

4.       Being able to see from the mountains to the other mountains

5.       The way the desert smells after it rains

6.       Being able to drive 27 miles in 27 minutes

7.       The amazing scale of the west. Everything is just farther away from everything else

8.       The relative proximity to so many national parks

9.       Burritos (baby burros. Ha! That one’s for Colleen)

10.   Burritos (the food. Carne Asada.)

11.   Making jokes like “If you made a wrap out of a baby burro, would it be a burrito burrito?

Things I will not miss:

1.       115 degrees. Nope.

2.       “But it’s a dry heat” Still hot. Also, that’s like asking someone from New Jersey what exit they’re from…mildly amusing the first time, then it gets old fast.

3.       The lack of greenery

4.       Everything that lives here wants to kill everything else that lives here

5.       115 degrees. Still nope.

As an aside, boy did Red Dead Redemption nail the look of the desert.